A teenage boy was seen hanging out of a car window before being found shot. TikTok led cops to the suspects
Police harnessed the power of social media to help find Key’mydre Anderson’s alleged killers. Last week, Johnathan Pyle’s capital murder trial began, James Liddell writes
The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday
Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US
Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US
A couple spotted Key’mydre Anderson hanging out of the window of a moving car before the 16-year-old was thrown to the pavement.
They shrouded the boy in their coats and jackets and offered prayers as he lay half-naked and covered in grazes on the floor of Clay Mathis Road, in Mesquite, Texas, on January 22, 2022.
“The witness says he was dangling,” Anderson’s mother Shenika told local news WFAA at the time. “My baby was holding on. He didn’t want to go.”
Anderson was pronounced dead soon after paramedics rushed him to a local hospital.
Authorities initially believed the victim was involved in a car accident, before they noticed a “puncture wound” to his chest.
Then the gravity of the situation became clear: he had been shot and thrown from a moving car, just a mile from his home.
Four people, including three teens and one of their mothers, were charged with his death after investigators gleaned intel from their TikTok and Instagram activity.
One of the alleged killers, Johnathan Pyle, 21, went to trial last week at a Dallas County courthouse charged with capital murder. If convicted, he faces the possibility of life in prison without parole.
‘He wasn’t in danger’
Anderson was described as a hardworking student at John Horn High School, whom his family affectionately nicknamed “Ears.”
The sophomore had an after-school job as a cook at a Sonic Drive-In fast food restaurant to help his single mother buy groceries and support his five younger siblings.
After finishing a shift at the restaurant on January 22, 2022, Anderson jumped into the shower and then met with his grandmother Tonya Palmer to buy groceries.
Later that day, between 6:30 p.m. and 6:45 p.m, Anderson got into a black Honda Civic.
Shenika said she had seen the vehicle outside her house before, and that her son knew the individual inside.
But there was a twist: Anderson had been communicating with one or more of the defendants and had gotten into the vehicle to allegedly purchase a firearm, authorities said.
“I don’t know why my grandson was buying a weapon,” Palmer said at the time to KDFW.
“He wasn’t in danger or any kind or harm or anything like that. Not that we know of.”
Robbery gone wrong
At 7:05 p.m., a witness dialled 911 at 2800 block of Clay Mathis Road and told the dispatcher that they had seen someone fall from the moving car.
Anderson was only wearing a t-shirt and underwear when police arrived at the scene. His jeans were torn from his body as he was allegedly pushed out the vehicle.
His death, the Mesquite Police Department revealed, was ultimately over the $250 in his pocket, which he earned from his after-school job.
Police said that the teen died from a gunshot wound to the chest, sustained during a “failed robbery attempt.”
It is unclear if Anderson was shot while inside the vehicle.
“When they agreed to meet up, the suspects attempted a robbery of the individual, and our victim was shot during the course of that robbery,” MPD Captain Stephen Bigg said.
TikTok provides evidence
Police began their investigation on the evening Anderson was shot dead.
Doorbell video footage from the surrounding area was reviewed before detectives looked at Anderson’s cellphone and social media history, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Evidence was gleaned from TikTok and Instagram accounts which alleged that Pyle, then 19, and Simon Guillen, then 18, conspired to rob Anderson.
Guillen’s mother Crystal, who was 34 during the alleged murder, and an unidentified boy, who was 15 at the time, were also arrested following the investigation. All four were charged with capital murder.
“That’s not a parent,” Palmer, Anderson’s grandmother, said of Crystal. “A parent wouldn’t do things like that. That’s called a madman, not a mother.”
It is not clear how Guillen’s mother and the 15-year-old are connected to the case nor when the three other defendants are due in court.
In the days that followed, teddy bears and flowers lined the road where Anderson spent his last moments. A vigil was held at the Cornerstone Baptist Church just two minutes from the victim’s home.
“The problem in our city is not so much the presence of the demonic, as it is the absence of the glory of God,” said Mesquite mayor Dan Aleman, who is also a pastor, during the vigil, according to Dallas Morning News.
Anderson was laid to rest on February 2, 2022 at a funeral home in South Cedar Hill.